Twitter has released its annual ‘Year on Twitter’ roundup which lists the top trending events and topics in India for the year 2013. The India-specific trends are:

Top Trending News

Afzal Guru (#AfzalGuru) who was convicted of attacking the Indian Parliament in December 2001 and secretly hanged in February 2013, was the top trending news topic for the year, followed by Tarun Tejpal (#Tejpal) who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman colleague last month, and the Syria unrest.

Indian festivals dominated the list of top trending events for the year, representing five of the top ten positions in the list. These include Eid Mubarak (third position), Lohri (fifth position), Diwali (eighth position), Ganesh Chaturthi (ninth position) and Holi (tenth position).

India Today’s Conclave 2013 (#Conclave13) was however the most trending event for the year, followed by the Jaipur Literature Festival (#jlf). Others in the list include Budget 2013 in fourth place, Women’s day in sixth place, and Railway Budget (#RailBudget) in seventh place.

Top Trending Politics

Narendra Modi was the top trending topic in politics for the year, quite similar to what Google and Facebook said in its respective yearly roundups.

Rahul Gandhi secured the second spot while BJP secured the third spot. Others in the list were Nitish Kumar, Aam Aadmi party (#DelhiWantsAAP), Pawan Bansal, Chintan Shivir, Narendra Modi’s Snoopgate (#saheb), ‘Pak PM’ and the regional political party DMK (#DMK).

As anticipated, IPL related topics significantly influenced the list of trending cricket topics for the year, accounting for four of the top ten topics in the list. The generic ‘IPL’ term was ranked third while individual matches like Rajastan vs Hyderabad (#RRVsSRH), Chennai vs Mumbai (#CSKVsMI) and Chennai vs Rajastan (#CSKvsRR) found a mention in the list. (Read: What Is Twitter Planning To Do For IPL 2013).

BCCI’s #ThankYouSachin campaign to commemorate Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from International cricket however was the most discussed cricket topic for the year. The campaign had clocked 3 million tweets in 12 days and Twitter had also mentioned that Sachin’s tweet, which thanked everyone for the wishes, was the most retweeted tweet of all time in India.

Shahrukh Khan related hashtag (#WeLoveSRK) was the most discussed Bollywood topic for the year, followed by #Akshay2000Crore, a hashtag celebrating the fact that Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar’s movies had generated a combined Rs 2,000 crore until February 2013 and Pran who died in July 2013. #BossKaBirthday, a hashtag celebrating Akshay Kumar’s birthday also made it to the list at the ninth place.

Bollywood movie-related hashtags represented remaining six of the top ten trending topics on the list. This includes Special 26 (#Special26) in fourth place, Shree (#ShreeTheMovie) in fifth place, Chennai Express (#ChennaiExpressWeekend) in sixth place, Student Of the Year’s one year completion (#1YearofSoty) in seventh place, Rangrezz (#BeRangrezz) in ninth place and Go Goa Gone (#GoGoaGone) in tenth place.

Top Trending Television

Colors’ ongoing controversial reality show Bigg Boss 7 (#BB7) was the most discussed television topic for the year, followed by Life OK’s reality shows ‘The Bachelorette India’ (#ThePerfectBachelor) and the finale episode of Star Plus’ reality dance show Nach Baliye (#NachFinale).